Sheldon is from East Texas. Born and raised and schooled. This is a town
with high internet connection that made
his childhood bearable. The only thing he didn’t like was the direction
in which the winds were flowing during summer. He was the envy of the
neighborhood kids who considered him ‘too grown’ for
his age. He never played with anyone because his favorite game, Bingo, could not be played by anyone around. The
neighborhood kids could not limit the level of decibels that suited him.
So he avoided them altogether. For someone who knew
that when stairs were few inches taller
(sic) than the height set by an architect then someone would triple, there was
no clear match for him in the neighborhood. He knew this too well because his brother had fallen and suffered a broken
ankle due to ununiformed
staircase which tend to keep someone’s centre of gravity off balance.
That explained the extra 4 inches in his dad’s coffin because the ankle didn’t heal upright. The family considered suing
the architect but the suit was dismissed.
Sheldon got the best childhood his parents could
afford. He never lacked but he didn’t have everything
he might have wished to have. His favorite possession
was a telescope his uncle had given him on his 10th birthday. His lost
it to neighborhood nerds who
stole it from the backyard of their house. Few months later he managed
to find but not in a working condition. He managed to lift fingerprints off the surface of the telescope and sent
them to FBI for investigation. He knew very well that the FBI didn’t not have the fingerprints so he sent a note
saying the fingerprints should be kept safely till the suspected thieves
attained age of majority upon which the FBI would
get their fingerprints. The FBI never responded. Till now Sheldon has no confidence in the FBI and
wonders whether their motto ‘fidelity, bravery and integrity’ is still
relevant.
As soon as Sheldon stepped in college, he
wrote a paper which according to him would ‘revolutionize the thinking
of humanity on the presence or absence of sub-atomic particles in a vaccum’. This paper was supposed to be published in the school
magazine. As fate would have it, the computer used to type the paper was
stolen. He had lost a precious piece of
work. Sheldon had to turn to the FBI again. He
requested the FBI to monitor scientific publications for the next decade to
see if
anyone had adopted his line of thought as regards the presence or absence of
sub-atomic particles in a vaccum. Till now, nobody has ever published anything along
Sheldon’s line of thought. The search for the thieves of his computer is still
on and for
someone who stood in a queue for six hours to get a ticket to attend Steven Hawkin’s
talk on theoretical physics, he is not losing hope anytime soon. Patience is
the word.
Stella is from Omaha Nebraska. Born and raised
too though schooled elsewhere. This is a
city founded along Missouri River and is often referred to as Gateway to
the West. It is a relatively cool breezed place that offers good temperatures
for an average mammal. The area has a mountainous terrain and offers a good
scenery. Stella grew up here in a small tight
family with two sisters and a brother. As a first born daughter she has
had to be a role model and so far she hasn’t disappointed her siblings. Stella’s
childhood passion was to be a photographer. She loved
shooting beautiful scenery. The saddest part of her career was when
someone stole her camera on the day she joined graduated from Pasadena School of Photography. She lost all the moments
she had captured on that day. Very few photos
of that day remain with her. When she told Sheldon this story of losing her
camera, Sheldon almost laughed and realized it wasn’t funny. He would have
risked a slap. Stella’s parents are definitely proud of her. She loves her parents to bits. Any move she makes out of town has
to be ‘approved’ by her parents. There is a time she was out of reach
for two days and her Mum had to send someone to 111th Street Pasedena to confirm whether she was ok. It turned out
that there was no power and her phone wasn’t charged. Even Sheldon was
worried as they had planned to have ice-cream at
the cheese cake factory that weekend in the city centre. There is also a time
Stella made an ‘illegal’ trip to Iowa without
informing her Mum. Only Sheldon and Aimy (her bestie) knew of the trip. Sheldon
persuaded her to call her Mum but she was reluctant that doing so would cause them a lot of worries as darkness was setting in
quickly. It was a business trip anyway and the illegality comes in
because she didn’t inform her parents. That evening before Stella travelled,
she met Sheldon in town and for the first time she saw him eat fried chicken
and French fries. To Sheldon, a man eating fried chicken, French fries
and a soda is likely to be gay. He didn’t order a soda though Stella teased him
about the whole ‘don’t-ask-dont-tell’ thing and she threatened to order
a soda for Sheldon. Not much can be said of that
evening. What followed thereafter when Stella was in Iowa was a story written
in hell and told at the hottest part of hell. Not so many people
know about it and will never know. Tight-lipped. Forever and ever.
